


still alive but barely breathing

by shell-heads (chocopies)



Series: Cap/IM Bingo [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Assumed Relationship, Heartache, Multi, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14206701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocopies/pseuds/shell-heads
Summary: You knew this was going to happen, Steve tries to remind himself, but all it does it make the savage tangle of regret tighten its barbed hold on him to leave his gasping, ashes of a lost future rising in the back of his mouth like bile, gray and viscous and more cruel than anything anyone could ever do to him because he’s the only one to blame for this. He did this himself, and he knew the consequences, and he needs to accept them, he repeats over and over again as if it can block out the ringing in his ears that echoes sharply over everything else around him.Unbidden, the image he’s been trying to rid himself of appears once more-Tony, with his hair soft and mussed, smile sparkling with delight and brown eyes filled to the brim with affection, a red scarf wrapped around his neck in the one shade that always makes his skin glow in the city lights.Tony, walking closely with Pepper and being genuinely, wholly, happy in a way Steve hasn’t seen for years.He always did have a habit of ruining all the best things to ever happen to him.





	still alive but barely breathing

**Author's Note:**

> a fill for my bingo card "never meant to hurt you" that takes place a month or so before infinity war without taking into account the events of spiderman homecoming. there is a description of blood in the fic that is metaphorical, but if you'd like to know please see the notes at the bottom for an explanation!! i also use flowers for symbolism, so please see here if you'd like to know what they mean!!

There’s something choking Steve, thicker than the worst tar and twice as dark-a black, toxic lump writhing inside him that threatens to steal his every breath and leave him suffocating in the bright lights of the bustling late night crowds of Manhattan. His hands are shaking inside his pockets, broad shoulders trembling like a single straw could break his back at any moment, spine a weakened line of despair beneath his tender flesh and skin.

You _knew_ this was going to happen, Steve tries to remind himself, but all it does it make the savage tangle of regret tighten its barbed hold on him to leave him gasping, ashes of a lost future rising in the back of his mouth like bile, gray and viscous and more cruel than anything anyone could ever do to him because he’s the only one to blame for this. He did this himself, and he _knew_ the consequences, and he needs to accept them, he repeats over and over again as if it can block out the ringing in his ears that echoes sharply over everything else around him.

Unbidden, the image he’s been trying to rid himself of appears once more-Tony, with his hair soft and mussed, smile sparkling with delight and brown eyes filled to the brim with affection, a red scarf wrapped around his neck in the one shade that always makes his skin glow in the city lights.

Tony, walking closely with Pepper and being genuinely, wholly, _happy_ in a way Steve hasn’t seen for years.

Steve knows the bitter feeling of a hate that becomes a fire burning at your every cell and makes your vision red-hot, the desire to take something apart and _destroy_ it until there’s nothing left but bloody stains on the floor, knows the feeling of wanting to claw inside something disgusting until not even a shadow of what it used to be can be found; seeing his passing reflection in the glass windows of the shops he passes by, Steve has never hated anything in the world more than he hates _himself_.

The world looks hazy through the fog of his unbearable loathing, lights blurry and pedestrians indistinguishable splotches of color as his feet weigh him down, steel wrapped around staggering ankles and the burden of a million possibilities turning the bones in Steve’s body to something more fine than dust. Sorrow is more a skin than any cloak, seeping into his pores until they’re inked in the most heartbroken blacks and blues, stories of all the things he should have done and didn’t-stories of all the things he wished he had but strangled with his own bare hands out of childish fear and the pretense of a wisdom he’s never had.

He always did have a habit of ruining all the best things to ever happen to him.           

Steve shouldn’t even be here, but he-he’d wanted to see Tony. He’d wanted to see Tony because he always wants to see Tony, always feels the absence of warm brown eyes and rough hands in the form of a ravenous black hole swallowing him from inside out, scraping out every bit of him until all that’s left is the intense yearning he tries to cover up with patchwork denial and a shabby beard.

“Steve?” a voice calls out, and he knows he’s imagining it because that’s _Tony’s_ voice, and Steve doesn’t get to have that anymore and he needs to _accept_ it goddammit-

“Steve?” Tony repeats harshly, a body stepping in front of him looking impossibly like Steve’s best dreams and worst nightmares all at once; it’s the real Tony, the Tony he’s wanted for months, the Tony that makes him ache at night with longing when he stares out the window in Wakanda. “Steve, is-is that you?”

“Hi, Tony,” Steve rasps feebly, his feet glued to the ground as his starved eyes take Tony in unconsciously, drinking in the sight of his face and hair and hands while Tony’s mouth hangs.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asks him, voice tight and frayed, eyes flitting from Steve to the hundreds of people milling around them. His hands have curled up into his coat pockets, shoulders twisting under a sudden mount of tension.

“I…” Steve’s head is spinning, eyes blinking rapidly to contain the tears threatening to spill out of his tired eyes. “I just…”

“ _What_?” Tony snaps, clearly distraught at Steve’s sudden presence and hiding panic in the depths of his brown eyes at his return and all the things it could mean. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Steve shakes his head, throat thick and unmoving no matter how many words he tries to summon to the tip of his tongue. “You-you and Pepper look happy. I’m glad.”

The lie falls out in a drip-drop of self-administered poison, Steve surprising himself when he doesn’t turn green with envy and choke on his stupid lying tongue, toxic waste bubbling viciously down his lungs. Somehow, they’ve reached a place where there’s no one but a few stragglers walking across the street, standing in front of a dilapidated building with a sign marking its nearing demolition date like a warning: it’s all going to come crashing down, twisted and crushed and fallen just like when Steve tore them apart.

“We’re not together,” Tony replies with a forced calm to his voice, layers and layers of telling secrets obvious to Steve despite how many years it’s been since he’s heard it. _I can’t, I can’t, I’m too hurt to be loved or love back and it’s all your fault-_

“Oh,” is all Steve can say in turn, praying his knees don’t fall to the floor under the weight of oncoming emotions trying to topple him over.

There’s silence, a gap stretching years and years wide, cavernous and gaping from secrets kept and words unsaid; they know this moment’s come too soon and not early enough, opening wounds that were covered in shoddy bandages and tape because it seemed as if they would never heal.

“I missed you,” Steve whispers hoarsely, unable to stop himself from letting it out. He’s missed Tony more than anything, truly.

More than his mom, more than Peggy, more than waking up in a time where everybody he knew was alive and happy, more than _Bucky_. He’s missed Tony like a vanished limb, this obvious nothingness where there used to be something Steve had never understood as precious, and it’s all because he looks back on his relationship with Tony and sees a man who gave and gave to a Steve that never gave _back_.  There was never anyone who loved Steve the way Tony did, and it makes him scream into the sky at how cruel it is that everything Steve wanted all his life had been right in front of him and he smashed it into pieces with his own foolish hands because he’s never been able to let go.

It’s the truth, and also the wrong thing to say; Tony’s whole body jerks, his feet taking a step back and throwing him into the shadow of a building. Steve can see his Adam’s apple bob and jaw clench, the shape of his hands curl harder in his coat pockets.

He’s going to leave, Steve knows, and never come back, and it’s that thought-the thought that this really might be _it_ after he was given this chance to see Tony and talk to him one last time before Tony removes himself out of Steve’s life for good-that inspires the sick curl of desperation in vapid plumes of green-grey in his churning stomach to push out a shaky truth.

“I never meant to hurt you,” Steve whispers hoarsely, helpless and defeated and trying to swallow what feels like a million knives when Tony flinches.

“But you did,” Tony reminds him, thin and brittle and slathered in hurt he tries his best to cover up. He’s shaking, visible even in the dim light, the picture of something on its last thread thinning and thinning until there’s just the barest line of color doing its best to survive.

“Tony,” Steve begs, stepping forward. “ _Tony_.”                                                

His hands reach out to touch Tony, hold him, get on his knees and ask for another chance even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it, and Steve-

-wakes up.

Arms outstretched and face wet with what Steve faintly realizes are tears, his hands touch a bare wall and flatten against it. The illusion shatters in a shower of splintered glass, misery crashing down in wretched notes that wail in Steve's ears louder than any siren.

Tony isn’t there.

He never is, and never was, and the poorly stitched remnants of Steve’s heart loosen their black threads to let heartbreak pool out in a red darker and more painful than blood, stained with memories Steve hasn’t let himself forget because of his gluttony for punishment. There’s a woven wreath of scarlet adonis perched right over his lungs, pricking him at his gasped breath and encouraging the growth of brambles and basil and belladonna until they number enough to form a thorny coffin, burying his lungs beneath falling petals colored in the deepest of regrets until Steve can barely think.

Curling up until his hands are hugged by the sweaty confines of his chest, Steve weeps into the empty night and wishes he could have at least had one touch-even a fake one would have been better than this abrupt awakening, this shock of cold water rushing over him until there’s nothing left but his broken sobs echoing in the room.

He misses Tony.

**Author's Note:**

> steve's heart is described as a wound from which blood pours out of, but no other graphic description is made in the writing of how it bleeds! 
> 
> i was honestly gonna go somewhere more heartbreaking with this, but i decided to save it for another fill sdlkfjlsjg if i made any mistakes in my writing you'd like to point out or if you enjoyed this, please leave me a comment below or hit me up on my tumblr @shell-heads!!.


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